Underwater homeowner report reveals “shocking” mortgage statistics

When a report emerged that nearly half of U.S. homeowners would be underwater by 2011, market analysts were, naturally, concerned. The report, released by Deutsche Bank’s Karen Weaver, has drawn widespread attention, largely because few other firms have pursued the same data. “I think in fact not a lot of folks have tried to do this analysis,” Weaver said to CNBC’s Erin Burnett. By taking housing price data and seeing how that would affect negative equity, Weaver said, “it ends up with a pretty shocking statistic.” In the first quarter the top five cities with the highest underwater rates all had underwater percentages above 80 percent.